Journeys End is considered a classic of First World War literature now, but at the time, it was rejected by almost every producer in the West End (‘How can I put on a play with no leading lady?’ one manager complained, providing Sherriff with the title to his future autobiography). It finally secured a pitiful two-night run at the Apollo in December of 1928, where it had the great good fortune to feature an unknown twenty-one-year-old actor in the lead role – one Laurence Olivier. It, and he, never looked back.Its a beautiful part for an actor, in a play thats wonderfully lean and controlled – a claustrophobic, tense study of combat trauma in three efficient acts. There is only one set – the inside of a British dugout – and we are not allowed out of it for the duration of the play, watching the interactions between Captain Stanhope and his four officers as a major German attack approaches.All of them deal with the tension in their own ways – Stanhope self-medicates with whisky; Osborne, his second in command, is calm and stoical; Hibbert attempts to feign a debilitating ‘neuralgia’; and Trotter concentrates on enjoying his food to the fullest.The newest arrival, Raleigh, knew Stanhope at school (where he was ‘skipper of rugger at Barford, and kept wicket for the eleven’); he has pulled strings to be in his boyhood heros company, and through him we see the changes that a year on the Western Front has wrought on Stanhope.In its setting, and in the dynamic of its characters, you can see this play standing squarely behind almost every televisual and film representation of the trenches ever since. (It is practically a blueprint for Blackadder Goes Forth, with company cook Mason doing duty as comic relief.) It is also very moving – perhaps most of all because its characters are not against the war at all. They believe that what theyre doing is important; we, watching from a distance, are almost overwhelmed by the meaningfulness that can be created from futility.

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